We are excited to announce the recent addition to our staff of a new Mental Health Clinician - Leticia Brown!

Leticia Brown, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, received her Marriage and Family Therapy training at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has over 10 years experience providing case management and therapeutic services to a variety of populations, including families impacted by the criminal justice system, women and children residing in substance abuse residential programs, adolescents diagnosed with co-occurring disorders and women survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking.

Leticia is a Ph.D. candidate at Widener University’s Human Sexuality Program and is currently acquiring clinical hours towards her Marriage and Family Therapy license. As a systems-oriented practitioner, Leticia’s personal and professional interests involve incorporating social justice issues and the utilization of mind-body connections in her clinical practice.

Many people know that the Bay Area is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the US. What most people do not know is that the FBI ranks the Bay Area as one of the worst 13 areas in the country for child sex trafficking.

Many of these children have been abused or neglected, and the majority have involvement with the child welfare or juvenile justice systems. Lesbian, gay, and transgender youth are more likely to have engaged in commercial sexual activity, in part due to homophobic home lives that pushed them onto the street.

Some youth may not have a pimp, and engage in "survival sex" to meet their basic needs. Sex work can be a dangerous occupation, often resulting in serious trauma. This is particularly true for persons who enter into sex work before the age of 18.

The words child and prostitute should never be used together in the same sentence, at least and certainly not in the context of the word “child” modifying the word “prostitute”.

But altogether too often, and of recent, we have seen these two words together. And although they have caused a reaction in many, that reaction has been difficult to fully comprehend. [Click here, here, and here for examples].

This is because the underlying assumptions are completely lacking clarity, and we have no common understanding of the root of the problem. On one hand, we know that by law, those who are under the age of 18 are in most states considered “children” and legally cannot consent to their own exploitation sexually.

On the other hand, it’s complicated. While some youth are being forced into the sex trade, many others believe that they are choosing their lifestyle—and for all practical purposes they may be. But our sympathy as a society wanes when we hear this type of thing and it doesn’t make for a good story.

The SAGE Project also seeks to affect larger societal change through advocacy and training, increasing public awareness and providing the tools needed to engage the local, national, and international communities around issues of sexual exploitation, human trafficking and trauma.